Safe and Sound

"It's freezin' out, BRRRR", that's Isabella's favorite thing to say lately, and it could not be more true! It has been SO cold, temps below zero everyday, with windchills in the minus thirties. I'm so glad I'm an introvert that loves just staying home, because I decided tonight that when I have more than one kid, and it's this cold out, I'm not going ANYWHERE. Actually, I don't even want to take Isabella with me anywhere when it's this cold unless I have to, if I can I'll just run errands when Monte's home. Really, I'm amazed at people that have a few kids, how do they get anywhere on time in weather like this?! When I was watching my friend's kids the other day it honestly took me half an hour to get everyone bundled up and into their car seats.

We went to town tonight to pick up the Durango from the repair shop (there was more wrong with it, but I won't get into that, lots of $ later it's at least fixed . . .). Then we went to the mall, and then met some friends for supper. I needed to go to Wal-Mart but Isabella was about ready to pass out from the cold, and I was sick of the constant bundling and unbundling everytime we went in or out, so we nixed the Wal-Mart idea and headed for home. The roads were bad - icy and snow blowing so bad it was hard to see, but we made it home, and home is where we shall stay, all safe and sound.

Just because . . .

I felt like taking some pictures this morning.

I'm not feeling so well

I really don't need to write about it, I'll just refer you back to this post. It's happening all over again . . .

What's been going on around here

It's been busy around here, Monte's mom came for a few days. Monte and I got to go on a date while she was here, and she and I did some Christmas baking. One of the things we made were caramels, it was the first time I had made them. They were a pain to make, but fun since we were doing it together, I don't know that I would attempt to do that by myself. She left yesterday morning, then a friend called to see if I would watch two of her kids in the afternoon. They had only been here for about an hour when Monte called to tell me he was stranded, the drive shaft fell off the Durango while he was on a busy road, and he couldn't do anything, including putting it in park. That could have been a very scary situation if he was going fast on the interstate, but thankfully he was in town. So the tow truck had to come get him, and all this after he just got all new tires on it that morning, which was way too expensive. And this doesn't sound like it will exactly be a cheap fix. I told him I think our rainy day fund is getting poured on, that's not good! So I loaded up Isabella and the other kids, and dropped them off with their mom, and Isabella and I headed to town to rescue Monte. It will hopefully be fixed today. Then we very narrowly escaped hitting a big dear on the way home, and when we finally got home and Monte taste tested my big double batch of peanut clusters I had made, I found out they didn't turn out. I accidently bought RAW peanuts instead of the salted, roasted ones. They were disgusting. So there went about $15 in ingredients, which is miniscule compared to the cost of the tires and having the Durango fixed, but it was the end of a very long, bad day, so it pretty much sent me over the edge. But I really wanted to have those made, so off I went to the grocery store to pick up more ingredients, and now I can cross those off my list.

Update: I wrote this post last night with the intention of posting it today. Along with the car we've had a lot of other unexpected expenses lately. Today in the mail, Monte got a notice that he got a raise!! They wrote him a letter saying how much they appreciate his work and that someone high up in the company recommended he receive a raise. And this company never gives raises except when contracts are signed in April! God is good, He takes such good care of us!

Tagged

I've been tagged by Kristin. The rules are to go to my 6th picture folder and post the 6th picture from that folder to my blog.

Hey what do ya know, it's me preggers. This was on our "babymoon", I was about 22-23 weeks, just a couple weeks before all the drama and bedrest started. This was fun to reminisce! I'm tagging whoever wants to play along.

Hmmm, it seems we got a little snow

This is Monte during hour 3 of clearing out our driveway. Take a look at how high the snow was in our driveway, about chest high!

Since it's the beginning of the season, I'm actually excited about this blizzard. It was BAD, we had windchills of almost 40 below, and we could not see one thing out of any of our windows, other than pure white. Isabella kept looking out the windows and saying, "no can see anything!". It was great to be all nice and cozy inside the house.

First time sledding

It was 30 degrees here today, supposedly our last nice day for a while. We are supposed to be getting a big blizzard tonight. Isabella hasn't played outside at all this winter, she lived outside when the weather was nice and warm, but she's always so cold inside the house so I thought she probably isn't winter outdoor playing material yet. But today, with the somewhat mild temp and no wind, she really enjoyed it!

Hey What do ya know, I'm putting my degree to use . . . kind of

We had our priest over for supper the other night, he was talking about how he's starting a Spanish Mass. It came up in conversation that that was my major in college. Today he called and asked if he could come over and have me help him. He recorded me reading different parts of the Mass, the readings for this weekend, and the Gospel, so that he could listen to them and get the pronunciations right. It's been a while since I've put that to use . . .

Have you heard this song?

I love Christmas music, and I LOVE this song. When Isabella was a tiny, little newborn I would hold her and listen to this song, and of course, bawl.

Joseph's Lullaby

The Name Game

On my way home from my parents, I was daydreaming about how wonderful it would be to have another girl sometime. I was going through names in my head that I really liked, there is one name that I love, but didn't think Monte liked it. The evening I got home, Monte, out of the blue mentioned that for some reason he was thinking about what we would name another girl if we have one. When he told me his name, I about fell over! It was the same name I had picked, and we had never talked about it, AND it's not a very popular name. How crazy is that?! So I guess that's settled, we've had our boy name picked out for years, so all we need is the kid!

Christmas Card Rejects

I took Isabella's pictures for our Christmas card the other day (our tree has been up for a while, I just didn't get around to posting it until today). I think I took about 15 pictures before I got a good one. Here are three of my favorite "rejects". And yes, her dress is quite familiar.

Hmm, let me inspect this present more carefully.

And my two favorite pics, that actually made the card . . .

Decorating the Tree

Our Thanksgiving

Our quiet Thanksgiving at home was great, our first turkey turned out wonderful.

And to answer Meredith's question, here is an article on brining. I had never heard of it until I met Monte's family, it makes a huge difference!

I'm Back

Isabella and I got home last night after spending 6 days at my parents. I was so busy the entire time I was there. I painted their living room and dining room and did a lot of deep cleaning the whole time. They are doing some remodeling, so after they get their new kitchen after Christmas I'll be going back to paint that, along with two entryways, and their bedroom as well. And please tell me I am not the only one whose child has a hard time dealing with staying away from home! Isabella was really not herself the whole time we were there, I would see snippets of herself, but for the most part she was a whiny, homesick, clingy mess. When my mom wasn't at work, she was painting with me, so Isabella was kind of on her own. My niece and nephew came over one day, and she really liked that. I do have to say, though, that for the most part she played by herself really well, she would just bring a toy to wherever I was painting and play next to me. I was wishing I had one of those backpack carriers, so I could just plop her in that, because she was wanting to be held a lot. Towards the end of our time there, whenever I would tell her that I needed to start painting she would come up with some excuse like, "Annie no feel good, Annie sick, Annie SO cold" thinking I would hold her then! I can't blame her, though, she is so used to our routine here at home, and it was total chaos at my parents. The house was a mess with all the work being done, and there were a bunch of people there putting in new windows and doors. She was completely out of her comfort zone. She kept saying, "go to Annie's house, see daddy", so she was definitely missing her daddy as well. And now that we're home, she is so happy and being an angel today, and I have a lot of unpacking to do . . .

First Meds

Isabella's cold has not gotten any better. Yesterday her eyes were all goopy and red, we thought it looked like pink eye, so I took her to the doctor this morning. The yucky eyes are just a result of the cold, but he sent us home with a prescription for eye drops and a decongestant. Her first meds, not bad for being two. I was a little concerned about the decongestant because I know they don't sell cold medicines for kids under six over the counter anymore, because too many parents were giving their kids overdoses. So when the pharmacist handed me the prescription and told me to give her 2 mL every six hours, I asked if she was just going by her age, because she is underweight for her age. When she looked up how much we should give Isabella according to her weight she found that she should only get 1 mL!! If I wouldn't have asked, I would have given her twice the amount she should have had, that's scary!

So with all the sickness around here, we have decided to change our Thanksgiving plans. We were going to go to my parents, but have decided that it would be best to stay here. Isabella has been taking crazy long naps since she's been sick, close to 4 hours everyday, and we know she wouldn't sleep as well somewhere else or get to bed at her normal time somewhere else. So it would be in her best interest if we stuck around here so she can get rested up, and well. Once she's feeling better, I plan on taking her to my parents to spend a few days there, so I might be away from the blog for a while. We are actually really excited to spend Thanksgiving here, just the three of us. I'm going to cook my first ever Thanksgiving meal, the turkey is thawing now, then we'll put it in the brine later. We watched a Thanksgiving special on the Food Network the other night, which got us in a cooking mood. And now I'm off to look up the brine recipe . . . Happy Thanksgiving!

The Weekend

Well I definitely did not need to be worried about Isabella, when Grandma and Grandpa came to pick her up she eagerly departed with a "bye guys, see ya guys!". Then, as they were pulling out of the driveway I happened to look out the window, and saw her sitting there with the biggest smile on her face! Of course I still had a few tears in my eyes anyway. Monte and I had a fun weekend of Christmas shopping and relaxing in the Cities. We had to hit the Mall of America, of course. My highlight was the shopping, and Monte's was the eating out. We came home yesterday afternoon to a sick little girl. Nothing major, just a runny nose, hoarse voice, and a general feeling of ickyness. But this being sick business is new to her, and she's not exactly handling it very well! She's quite obsessed with having her nose wiped, she can't stand it running even a tiny bit. And now she has so kindly shared her germs with us, so both Monte and I are not exactly up to par either. Hopefully we'll all be better by Thanksgiving.

Not a good time to experience separation anxiety

Every Thursday Isabella goes to play with other kids while I am in Bible Study, every Thursday she doesn't care one bit when I leave her, and happily goes off and plays. Until today. She screamed, "Mommy", for a while, and just when I was going to go in and get her, she stopped. But I could hear her crying in there a couple of other times throughout the morning. It wasn't too long, otherwise they would have come and got me. But then, even when we got home she just wanted me to hold her and carry her, while she laid her head down on my shoulder and patted me. She kept saying, "miss mommy". Sad. You see, this is not good because we are leaving her with grandma and grandpa for the weekend, Monte and I are going on a little getaway, and have been looking forward to it for quite some time. I think she'll be okay because she LOVES her grandma, but I'm going to be really sad if she's sad.

I've got nothing

Really, it's been pretty boring around here (in a good way, just low-key, relaxing days), other than Isabella went to her first funeral yesterday. Nobody we knew, I had to sing at it, and she was so good for the whole hour and a half. I was a little worried because of having the microphone close, she sometimes likes to "sing" herself (especially the Alleluia), but she never made one peep. But ever since she saw me singing yesterday, she's been going around the house singing at the top of her lungs! It amazes me how much kids do EVERYTHING they see, and at this impressionable age, I'm glad I know pretty much everything she sees. Go ahead, call me overprotective. :)
Anyway, since I don't have a lot to say these days, check out Food and Fellowship, I have been posting over there.

Jolene

I'm still here. Monte's been working from home A LOT lately, every day until about 10:00 at night, so I haven't had much access to the computer. A quick break every now and then, but not long enough to actually post something, so here I am finally. I'm finding I actually really like not being able to be on the computer for very long periods of time.

Monte has an aunt named Jolene, she lives on the east coast. She comes to our area about once every 2 or three years, so when she was in the area a few months ago, we went out to eat with her and her husband. Isabella really liked her, so every once in a while I would sing that old Dolly Parton song, "Jolene", to her. She thought it was funny, and started singing it herself, I finally caught some of it on camera. And pay no attention to her "crying" baby, her poor baby is always crying, she must be colicky. :)

Happy Girl!

Today was a lazy day. I feel a little guilty for not getting much done other than cooking, it was just one of those days. Isabella is on a book binge lately, that's about all she wants to do, so I guess I spent the majority of the day reading to her, and will this girl ever play by herself again?! She seems to go in spurts where that's all she wants to do is go off and play by herself, followed by a period of time of not playing by herself at all! And right now we are in that time where she wants to play with Monte or me all the time, not that it's all bad, but really, I think she is capable of sticking her doll's passy in it's mouth. It's just more fun to have Mommy do it 1,275 times a day!! And here's some pictures from our morning. She was being her usual goofy self.

First Haircut

We decided to give Isabella her first haircut this past weekend, my mom did the honors. I've never even trimmed it before, and her crazy baby mullet was really getting to us! At least the hair on the top of her head is finally growing, it will be a while yet until it catches up with the rest of her hair, though. Her hair has lost a lot of it's curl, but it still has waves, and does some weird flippy things.

Before - Looking a little scraggly!

After - Front and side veiws.

The Last of the Celebrations

We celebrated Isabella's birthday with my family on Sunday. It was great to have my parents stay overnight with us, it's been awhile. Also, my sister and her family came. My brother and his family were not able to make it. She got Clipo, a Veggie Tales electronic toy, a Veggie Tales CD, lots of books, stuffed animals, markers, and coloring books. I made, what I thought would be, a simplified version of her previous cake. It ended up taking me just as long to make it, though.

Snow Day!

We were snowed in today, and it was the perfect snowday. Monte was home, and instead of catching up on housework while Isabella napped, I decided to drink hot chocolate and read my Taste of Home magazines. It was a relaxing day, we kept saying that it felt like we were in school, and were home on a snowday.

Good Books

Check out Connie's blog if you are interested in buying any Usborne books. If you haven't heard of them, they are awesome! These books are so much fun, and reasonably priced. I've bought them a couple different times, both times I have ordered online and they arrived within a few days.

Happy Golden Birthday to my Sweet Girl!

We've had a fun weekend around here! This girl is definitely not lacking in birthday celebrations. We celebrated with Monte's family a couple of weeks ago, then yesterday we met Monte's mom at the zoo, and went out to eat. Today, just the three of us are celebrating, and next weekend we'll have her party with my family! Oh, and also on Friday night two sets of neighbors gave her birthday gifts. She got an easel from one neighbor, with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other side. She was SO excited about it, that she woke up at 3:30 this morning. I was worried when she got up, because that's not like her, I thought maybe she was sick or something, but the crazy kid got up because she wanted to play with her easel! I explained to her that it was still nighttime, and then rocked her for a while until she fell back asleep. Then, this morning after Mass, we took her to the store and said she could pick out whatever she wanted to eat. She picked out bananas and doughnuts. She was so proud of those bananas, carrying them all around the store. We then let her open a couple of presents from us, she got a little banjo (which, for some reason, she thinks is a potty for her dolls) and a Waterbaby, which she is now in love with. We also got her some books, but I might save those until her party next weekend.

I cannot believe what a big girl she is now! She's becoming more independent all the time. She can say anything and everything, and is talking in complete sentences. She does get me, you, and I mixed up. She always says "you" when she is talking about herself. She loves to say the words to the sign of the cross, and is getting better at the actions. She loves to play ring around the rosie, especially with her cousin, Rachel. She is counting to ten, and knows just a couple small parts of the abc's. She knows all the basic colors, this winter I'm going to work on shapes with her. She still loves to read, right now her favorite book is "Momma, Will You?", we read it about 20 times a day. Some of her other favorite activites are playing with Play-Doh, and coloring. Her favorite toys are her baby dolls and their accessories. She loves going to church, and gets excited when we tell her that's where we're going, we found out a long time ago that if we bring nothing for her to do in church, she doesn't think it is playtime, and will sit really still and pay attention (thanks to my sis-in-law for that tip). Her best friend (other than her cousins Marie and Rachel) is a little girl named Katelynn. She calls her "Kay-haan" and Katelynn calls her "Canbella"! She can be very shy around people she doesn't know, and has a very tender heart. Sometimes just telling her the word "no" will break her heart. She has been the greatest joy in our lives, we are so blessed!

At the zoo - Three generations.

Her new easel.

Can't hardly wait for Daddy to get the baby out of the box.

Giving baby a kiss.

Her new banjo (aka doll potty!?)

You'd think I would be over it by now

A couple of weeks ago, at my weekly bible study, a friend of mine broke down in tears. That day was her son's fifth birthday, and although it was five years ago, the scary memories of how he came into to the world were still so painful for her to think about. Her experience had a lot of similarities to mine. And to be honest, I was relieved to know how she felt, because I have been feeling the same way, both last year at Isabella's birthday, and now this year with her birthday coming up in just a couple of days. I can't explain it very good, but when I think about my pregnancy and her birth, it's like it was just yesterday. All the emotions and complete fear come rushing back to me. Her birthday is such a bittersweet time for me, I'm so happy to have my healthy little girl, but those emotions are always on my mind this time of year. I try not to think about her birth, but it's like a movie playing over and over again in my mind. The chaos of doctors rushing in, working on her tiny, lifeless body. Even though the outcome was wonderful, the whole experience was just something I'd rather not think about. I know some would say to get over it, things could have been SO much worse. I know that because that's what I keep telling myself, but it's just not that easy. Anyway, needless to say, I'm kind of an emotional basketcase right now . . .

Trick or Treat

I say she's a little lamb, but she tells us she's a Daddy sheep!

These pictures were taken last weekend. The local nursing home had a trick or treat day, it was lots of fun. She got so much candy, she was dragging her bucket on the floor by the end. Thankfully, she's not very interested in eating it (I'm sure next year she will be), she just likes to play with it and "feed" it to her dolls. I don't think we'll be needing much more candy, so today we'll just go to a couple of the neighbors' houses to show off her costume.

Not Quite Ready for Five . . .

kids that is. Here's a snippet of my day -

I'm holding a screaming 2 month old who is flopping all over the place, the 7 month old is rolling all over and I can't keep track of him, I'm worried about what tiny toy part he got into that the older ones left out, and an almost three year old is trying to stuff crackers down the 7 month old baby's throat. At the same time, I am constantly hearing "I'm hungry", "I'm thirsty", "I need to go potty", "Help me find . . ." from the two almost 3 year olds. So . . . while holding the floppy, screaming two month old, I attempt to get food and drinks for two of the kids, help them at the table, help them go potty, etc. Meanwhile, Isabella is just staring at me like what are you doing? I totally neglected her, because she was not demanding at all. She actually just stood there and watched the other kids eat, without saying anything other than a shy "Annie hungry too". (She always refers to herself as Annie). But she waited patiently until I could get something for her. The poor thing, I didn't even get to her needed to be changed diaper for like an hour and a half!

I told my mom that I don't think I'm ready to have 5! But as she pointed out, they don't usually come that fast. I took care of 5 kids under 3! There were activities at the elementary school today that the moms could take part in. So I watched the youngest kids of two of my friends. I was in complete survival mode, only able to make sure their basic needs were met (and I probably wasn't even very good at that). I felt bad about not giving them the attention they should have had (especially the babies). Maybe that's just because I only have one now, who gets my undivided attention. All I know is, I could never do daycare (at least not that many who are that close in age). And I have a new found respect for anyone who can do that!

Things I'm thankful for tonight . . .

1. A washer and dryer. I remember when we lived in apartments, the one thing I looked forward to the most about buying a house was having my own washer and dryer. When we moved into our home I was SO excited about having a washer and dryer that I would wash just a few things at a time, so that I could do laundry every day! However, the novelty quickly wore off. But after our dryer broke (we were without it for the last week) I am not taking that for granted anymore!


2. A handy husband who could take the dryer apart, and fix it himself, thus saving us lots of money, I'm sure. All we had to do was order a part.


3. A little girl that doesn't seem to grow too fast. She's wearing some things from last winter (including all of her pajamas from last year) , but what I'm especially happy about is that her 18 month winter coat, snow pants, hat, etc. from last year still fit her perfectly. Yes, we're wearing all that stuff around here. The temperatures have been in the 20's and 30's.

Last Year

Today

Two year pics - part 2

These were fun, but I like the outdoor ones better, so we'll use those. I'm glad I took those when I did, the weather has been horrible lately.

29

Happy 29th birthday to my wonderful hubby! I was supposed to attend a teacher in-service for religious education about 30 miles away this evening, but it has been SNOWING since early this afternoon. The temperature is exactly 32 and the roads were really wet earlier, so Monte thought the roads would be really slick tonight. We decided I should play it safe and stay home. I figure, what are they going to do, fire me from my volunteer position? :) Besides, this way, I got to stay home and celebrate! I made one of his favorite meals for supper. I also made a new cake, that was really easy and delicious. I'll post the recipe to Food and Fellowship sometime soon.

Did Someone Call for a Doctor?

This and That

I think I'm in a blogging slump. I haven't had much desire lately to blog or be on the computer, there's been a lot going on.

Monte's not doing so good with his Crohn's Disease, prayers would be appreciated.

His wedding ring has not been found. I really don't think we'll see it again.

And now on to happier things -
We celebrated Monte's (tomorrow) and Isabella's (Nov. 2) birthdays with his family this past weekend. Isabella is now decked out with new toys, and it's not even her birthday yet, she's got another party to go! She got baby doll furniture (highchair, swing, car seat, crib, and stroller) from her Mama and Papa (grandma and grandpa). Some other things she got were a My Little Pony magic tea set, a doctor kit, clothes, and a big Play Dough activity center. Her VeggieTales cake turned out alright. I'll make it again for her next party. We had meatloaf, which is both her and her daddy's favorite food. She's been worn out from the weekend. She's been sleeping 13 (usually it's 11) hours straight at night, plus her usual 2-3 hour naps!

Monte and I got to go on a date while we were staying at his parents. We went out to eat, did a little shopping, and went to a movie. We saw The Express, it was great!! And I don't even like football, but I loved this movie.

It's gotten cold here! It was in the 30's all day, and sleeting! Isabella has always been one to get cold easily, every morning she tells us she's "freezing", and so Monte will hold her tight and put a blanket on her to warm her up. I finally got a picture!

These kids are going to drive me to drink!

Well, I thought my sixth grade religion class was going better, but maybe it's not. Tonight was a disaster! And I've never kicked anyone out before, but I definitely would have tonight. Of course this was the only night our hall monitor wasn't there, so I couldn't. I mean, really, what do you do when kids tell you, their religion teacher, that they HATE going to church, and never go. Their reasoning - it's a waste of time, waste of gas, and they don't care if it's a sin or not! Yes they actually said all those things, and more! And now, I feel like maybe I was a little harsh with them, I pretty much laid into them. But I did say that I was sorry they felt that way, and that I would pray for them. And I told them something I read on Danielle Bean's Coffee talk yesterday, that there was an empty spot in the pew every Sunday that Jesus has reserved just for them. And actually, that got their attention more than anything else I said. Towards the end of the night, my head was pounding, my adrenaline was rushing, and I couldn't take much more, so I made them all go into the church and we prayed the rosary.

Oh, and they're not ALL bad, I have two girls who are excellent, and so sweet (and who actually go to church, and have parents that teach them things).

Lost

Monte called me this afternoon, somewhat frantic, to tell me he just realized he lost his wedding ring! He was really upset, and so was I. I wasn't upset with him or anything, just sad that it was gone. His hands were really cold this morning, and he was constantly taking gloves on and off while checking different fields, so it must have slipped off then. Everyone keeps saying, "well don't you have insurance on it?", just like it's not a big deal. We don't have insurance on his ring because it wasn't all that expensive, but that's not what we care about. What we care about is that it was his wedding ring, blessed on our wedding day. It seems impossible, but we're praying St. Anthony can help us out on this one.

That was weird

The Chinese restaurant we ate at last night was playing a variety of music, some if it was in Spanish!

Afterwards, we walked next door to the second-hand kids clothing store, where they were playing Christmas music!

Photo Shoot in the Backyard

I wanted to take some of Isabella's two year pictures outside. Even though she's not quite two yet, I thought I should take them while the weather was nice, as it is quickly getting cooler. Yesterday was supposed to be our last nice day for a while. I am loving my new camera!